We must all of us first learn to separate the moral from the medical campaign. Both are necessary, but they must be conducted independently. America is doing this; England is not. In England venereal disease is still officially regarded as something to be discussed; in America—as something to be destroyed. Thus America is winning and England losing the battle against the venereal microbe. The Overseas British Dominions will undoubtedly follow the lead of America—particularly that of Pennsylvania. Hence, these newer countries may have a glorious future, England—only a splendid past.[Q]
IV.—COMPULSORY TREATMENT.
All women should be in favour of reasonable measures for ensuring the voluntary, and failing that the compulsory, treatment of venereal disease among men and among women.[R] It is troublesome to prevent a man getting disease if he is running into a pool of infection, and such cesspools should be cleaned up or cleared out of the community—i.e., cured or quarantined. Similarly, it is even more troublesome to prevent a woman becoming infected if she is having relationship with an active gonorrhœic or syphilitic man, and such men should be treated voluntarily, or compulsorily if they refuse or neglect voluntary treatment. Free treatment should be available to poor persons only; providing free treatment for all and sundry, whether they can afford to pay for it or not, is simply encouraging men and women to trust to luck rather than to disinfection. This presupposes that the teaching of self-disinfection has been done confidently and authoritatively. When prevention has been properly taught, then it is fair to penalise those who wilfully neglect to take precautions. It was a great misfortune to the Anglo-Saxons when the Contagious Diseases Acts were abolished; instead they should have been improved and extended to both sexes. Their abolition was the worst blow ever struck at marriage. Fortunately, their main principles we are now beginning to re-enact in various Sexual Hygiene Acts. The more "drastic"—i.e., the more efficient—these are, the more they should be supported by those who honestly desire to make marriage safe.
Apart from voluntary and compulsory treatment for venereal diseases, we certainly need voluntary and compulsory sterilisation of the unfit—diseased and feeble-minded and otherwise unfit persons, who, whatever their other qualifications may be, are unsuitable as parents. But whatever operation is decided upon, for men and for women, must in no way interfere with ordinary sexual activity; otherwise it will be promptly turned down by the general public, no matter what its medical advocates may say. In marriage the partner to be sterilised is obviously the one who is unfit for parenthood.[S]
V. CONCLUSION.
With the moral and social aspects of birth-control there is no need to deal further, except to say that they have recently been endorsed in England, with fine grace and high authority, by Lord Dawson of Penn (one of the King's Physicians), in an address given before the Church Congress at Birmingham, on October 12th, 1921, which has since been republished by Messrs. Nisbet at a shilling, under the title of "Love—Marriage—Birth-Control." The following short extract may be quoted here:—
"Generally speaking," says Lord Dawson, "birth-control before the first child is inadvisable. On the other hand, the justifiable use of birth-control would seem to be to limit the number of children when such is desirable, and to spread out their arrival in such a way as to serve their true interests and those of their home."
As to the prevention of venereal disease, as I have said, what we must aim at is not merely the prevention of sin, but the prevention of the poisoning of the sinner; for, if not, we shall have blind babies, invalid wives, and ruined husbands: broken-hearted and broken-bodied mothers adding one fragment after another to the Nation's pile of damaged goods.